CMOS BEOL-Compatible See-Saw Microelectromechanical Non-Volatile Memory with Low On-Resistance

This paper reports a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) back-end-of-line (BEOL)-compatible microelectromechanical non-volatile memory (MEM-NVM) with low on-resistance. The proposed see-saw design uses a torsional hinge with a low spring constant, enabling reliable memory retention through the stiction phenomenon. The fabricated device achieves a high on/off ratio of 10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">6</sup> in both ‘0’ and’ l’ states with low on-resistance of 240 <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\Omega$</tex>. It demonstrates stable operation over 184 cycles and excellent data retention with less than 10% resistance variation after 10<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">6</sup> seconds. Through the proposed design, we fabricated a MEM-NVM with high reliability and low on-resistance, positioning it as a breakthrough solution for next-generation CMOS-micro Inanoelectromechanical (MINEMS) integrated circuits (ICs) for harsh environments and energy-efficient applications.